Tag Archives: estate sale finds

Last weekend I found I found a treasure trove of vintage clothing! I went to an estate sale that had close to 10 walk in closets. Just when I thought I was done I found more and more clothing. I found tons of graphic shirts from the 80’s, vintage denim and even swimsuits, coats and more. I’ve been going through it all week and have been thoroughly enjoying getting it all photographed and listed.

With the weather getting cold and the last month being eaten up by holidays there haven’t been many auctions or sales here lately. I’ve been sitting in my office dreaming of auctions past. What a lovely summer it was! It looks like I’ll have another couple weeks free from estate auctions so I’m getting through my inventory backlog. At one of the best auctions I went to this fall I bought about 20 lamps. I love buying and selling lamps but it’s taken me a while to get all these cleaned up and ready to list.

This lamp was one of my favorites. It’s a pretty standard mid century lamp but shade is just too interesting. It has an outer wicker shade but inside it has this darling fiberglass shade with printed butterflies.

This lamp was also a favorite of mine. It might be the oldest one I’ve found so far. It’s made of a cast metal with these beautiful Art Nouveau flowers on it. When it sells to someone with the time to fix it up it should be totally stunning.

And of course I’ve never been able to pass up kitschy mid century lamps. This one with the rooster is about as kitschy as it gets!

It’d been a few weeks since I’d done much sourcing but I hit the auctions hard last weekend! I went to a weekly consignment auction and an absolutely fabulous estate auction. It was one of those auctions that seemed to last all day. I was only able to leave once we’d filled the car and even then there were more things I would’ve liked to have bought.

Among the highlights from that auction were 20 lamps I brought home (photos of those to follow in another post), a ton of vintage NOS towels and sheets, several small sets of melmac dishes, and more random vintage items than I can even list.

I bought an entire laundry basket full of vintage 60’s and 70’s towels. They’re all different designs and colors and most interestingly of all, they’ve all got the original tags on them.

Speaking of over the top and brightly colored I found the most groovy vintage purse! It’s made by Midas of Miami and is dripping with beads and gold glitter detail. I researched the maker some and found they made a variety of completely off the wall purses such as giant wicker animals. That’s something I’ll have to be on the lookout for in the future.

I’m always looking for things that would look smart in a home office. I got lucky this weekend and found two different sets of Royal Haeger bookends! One set has the original sticker and the other one took some research to identify. I also found another art deco desk lamp (this one will need a bit more cleaning up than the last one) and a unique black glass ashtray with a little bakelite Washington monument on the top.

This darling vintage metal typewriter has dials and buttons that can be played with.

Another thing I’m always on the lookout for are vintage tumblers. I thought these had about the most atomic design of any I’ve seen. There’s 8 of them and I know someone out there has a home bar just calling for them.

I found both of these at another one of those cold November yard sales. The shoes and purse just screamed to me. They look so much like something one of my Barbies would have worn circa 1994. The hat (also circa 1994) has never been worn and still has the cardboard insert in it. The commercials with those frogs are still seared somewhere deep in my brain and now I have the hat to prove it.

Last weekend I went to the estate sale of the year! It rained most of the day and was just cold enough to make standing outside for hours pretty uncomfortable. The sale had so much good stuff I had to really try not to buy more than I could get home. It always seems that the best estate sales are an hour + away, making buying more than a car load impossible. Still I stayed and bid all day and ended up winning everything I wanted to buy (and even more groovy random finds).

The first thing I saw walking up to the sale was an amazing collection of vintage lamps. I’ve been wanting to find some with original fiberglass shades for a long time. Not only did I find a stunning pair of those, but also found a super kitschy chalkware lamp with venetian shade, retro beehive lamp and a bakelite art deco lamp.

I usually keep all the lamps I have for sale on my dresser until they sell. My dresser is getting mighty crowded after last weekend!

Another quite groovy thing I found was this vintage picnic set. It’s made of a bright yellow plastic and all manages to fit in this cute little carrying case. It doesn’t look like its ever been used!

I haven’t been finding as much jewelry lately but found some really cute pieces at this sale.

My biggest find was fabric. The sale had box after box after box of vintage fabric of all types. I’m particularly attracted to unique retro prints and bold colors. I bought around 60 pieces of vintage fabric and still haven’t gotten to sort it all.

I always have a hard time going to a large sale and not buying a few things for myself. This weekend I found this amazing vintage cat paint by numbers. I have no idea what’s going on in the background but the cat looks like a total boss. I just need to find a frame for it and it’ll be going on my office wall with all the other odd art I’ve found.

I also found these 80’s style glass mugs with jets on the sides. Two of them have 22kt gold printing. There’s a FA-18, an AV-8B and a F-15E. I just loved their totally badass 80’s aesthetic.